Dear All,

As part of BGC’s ongoing efforts toward becoming a more diverse, equitable, accessible, and inclusive institution, we will all participate in a two-part online racial justice training program on December 9 and 10 from 9:30 am to 12:30 pm each day. All faculty and staff are required to participate on both days; please plan accordingly. If you absolutely cannot attend during those hours, there is an afternoon make-up session from 1:30 to 4:30 pm both days.  Below you will find details about the group providing the training, Equity Allies, and details about the sessions, including the schedule. 

Schedule (please click to register for one session on EACH day):
Part I: Wednesday, December 9
9:30 am–12:30 pm
Make up session: 1:30–4:30 pm (for staff who absolutely cannot make the morning)

Part II: Thursday, December 10
9:30 am–12:30 pm
Make up session: 1:30–4:30 pm (for staff who absolutely cannot make the morning)

Please respond no later than Wednesday, December 2, by clicking each of the dates above to register for each day of training. Reminders and calendar invites will follow this email to ensure full participation by all staff and faculty.

Thank you in advance for your participation in this important mandatory training.

Susan

ABOUT 

Equity Allies’ online racial equity workshop for faculty and staff will provide skills and tools to improve dialogue across difference and promote a culture of belonging. Equity Allies prioritizes collaborative learning and builds in plenty of opportunity for small group dialogue and co-created meaning. The outcome is a more engaging workshop, where participants are more likely to experience long-term impact from multi-sensory learning.

In this workshop, participants will engage in small group dialogues around race, racism, privilege, conscious and unconscious bias, and whiteness; consider the legacy of systemic racial injustice in the US; talk through inclusive and equitable language and practice; learn tools for having difficult conversations across difference.

Training Goals

• To foster a more inclusive and equitable working environment for community members.
• To grow stakeholder skills for cross-cultural communication focusing on racial equity.
• To promote staff member’s individual agency to identify and repair the unintended negative impact of interpersonal interactions respectfully and safely.
• To identify actionable opportunities for marginalized identities to be centralized and lead.
• To lay the groundwork for deepening allyship and collaborative co-liberation.

Marissa Metelica
Founder and Facilitator
Marissa Metelica is an anti-oppression educator, artist, and healer with nearly a decade of experience training and consulting organizations in race and gender equity. She has provided curriculum and training to government agencies, non-profits, and universities. Through Equity Allies, which she founded in 2019, Marissa offers interactive, trauma-informed anti-oppression training that invites and honors individual truth. With her background in Applied Theatre, Marissa weaves body-centered learning and healing into all of her justice work. Marissa strives to welcome the shadow and centralize the most marginalized stories in order to heal and grow into our highest capacity for grace and equity. Her work in theatre for peacebuilding and reconciliation has taken her to Rwanda, Uganda, and Northern Ireland. Marissa has also served as an adjunct professor at Drew University, and she is the Director of Programs at the Applied Theatre Collective. 

Dax-Devlon Ross, J.D.
Program Developer
Facilitator
Dax-Devlon Ross, J.D., has led a career as an educator, non-profit executive, equity and impact strategist and journalist with a focus on social justice. After receiving his Juris Doctorate from George Washington University, he joined New York City Teaching Fellows where he taught in middle and high schools in Brooklyn and Manhattan. He later helped lead the national training and replication team at the Posse Foundation, one of the country’s foremost college access organizations. He founded the New York and New Jersey chapters of After-School All-Stars, a national youth development nonprofit, and later served as the organization’s inaugural northeast regional executive director where he managed growth strategy, programs, partnerships, fundraising, board governance and operations in five states.

Dax is the author of five books and his journalism has been featured in Time, The New York Times, Washington Post, The Guardian, Huffington Post, Virginia Quarterly Review, Nonprofit Quarterly Review and other national publications. He was the winner of the National Association of Black Journalists’ Investigative Reporting Award for his coverage of racial jury exclusion in North Carolina courts. He is a fellow at Type Media Center and a Principal at Dax-Dev Inc. and Third Settlements. dax-dev.com